Customer Reviews

Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe 2004 [Old Version]

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

Whether you've used greeting card software before or not, the navigation through the project selection for the Hallmark Card Studio Deluxe is very easy and very similiar to using Internet Explorer or any other browser. Setup can take a while, depending on whether or not you choose to install the program entirely on your hard drive or to run content from the CDs. You can create your own cards, invitations, banners, newsletters, and more. The greetings are typical classy Hallmark, with some humor (more humor cards are available in a separate package; same thing with Christian cards). [Note: I don't do the extra projects, just the cards.] I upgraded from the very first version of this software and was pleased by the changes, but hate that the product doesn't come with as many greetings as I'd expected. American Greetings Platinium 7 gives you more cards for less money, but doesn't allow you to view individual cards as easily as Hallmark. The Deluxe version gives you about 1000 more cards than the Standard. Still, there's no risque humor, not enough Shoebox Greetings (or other specialty line cards), and the overall selection is sadly lacking, with no option (as in the original version) to "unlock" more content for a fee.

I was able to get a sneak peak at this before the release date. Calendars have been added and they are beautiful. You can also create your own personalized calendars and it's easy to put your calendar information in so it can be printed. They've added lots of new cards. A lot of the cards are the same ones you're seeing in the Hallmark stores right now. I own Card Studio 2003 but I'm definitely buying the 2004 version.

The Hallmark imprematur led me to this product, but again and again as in the past, the lousy implementation of Sierra Products software bit me in the posterior.

The pictures are non-changeable, and to modify or personalize the text you need a good chunk of time.

The real stinker is the printing wizard. Not only are the animated instructions incorrect (costing a lot of paper, ink and time), the application insists on running this wizard each and every time you send a project to print!

I have it confirmed from Vivendi Universal (the originator?/publisher?/author? -- the tech support that responds) that: "Unfortunately at this time we have not found a solution to the issue where it keeps redoing the printer setup." Please note that they do not have a mechanism to refund your money either!

Learn from my mistakes: don't buy this product, and don't by anything that has Sierra Software on it!

The program works fine on Windows XP and is easy to use. It lets you print cards of many sizes. The big disappointment is in the number of cards that comes with the program. The back of the box claims "4500+ Cards and Sentiments, Celebrate life's special moments with cards for all occasions". That's nice. The problem with that is that I counted the total number of cards that come with the program. It only adds up to 1045! So where are the other 3450+ cards and sentiments? Are you supposed to design them yourself? I just don't know. And certainly "cards for all occasions" means just that, doesn't it? Well there's lots of birthday cards and plenty of holiday cards but not one sympathy card of any kind. I guess you just need to buy those on your own.

Purchased this program for the event planner/address book. The problem is that when making labels from the book, you are unable to scroll through the address book list. Sierra has been made aware of this problem, but does not know when a solution will be available. If you are looking for a program strictly for the cards, this is an excellent choice.

I have one of Hallmark's first card softwares. There are so many things you can't do on this compared to my old one. There are many cards where you can't change the type, for ex. from "cousin" to "son", like you can on their old one. The old software you can click on the graphics and change it to something similar. This will not let you customize the size of the cards, even though it gives the options. I could go on and on. Not worth the price.

I just purchased this software and find that it doesn't even offer any July 4th ideas for invitations, cards or sentiments! This is the first software of this type that I've purchased and I would not recommend it.

It prints configuration pages, every time you use it. Keeps wasting toner and ink. For the envelope printing, doesn't matter which way you tell it your printer prints envelopes, it prints the type in the same place every time.
I've used previous versions in the past and loved them. This one does not work as well as the one's in the past. Don't waste your money.

I was really surprised to read some of the other reviews about this product -- it's as we we've purchased entirely different programs. In my experience with this software, I've found it to be extremely smooth-running and user-friendly from installation to printing, and the card selection and customization is second to none.

There have been perfect cards for every occasion to date and we've customized them countless ways -- adding and editing photos, moving text, sending ecards, you name it! Navigating within the art studio is very intuitive.

Printing cards from the sofware is very easy and the on-screen configuration works great. Unlike some of the other reviews, I haven't had the problem of having to re-configure every time I print. We set it up once and that was it. I've printed on card stock paper, which turns out gorgeous, and we've also printed the quarter-fold plain letter size which also looks great and works perfect with size A2 envelopes (this is a great printing option if you don't want to buy card stock paper!).

I've used this software on all of my computers, have recommended it to many people, and so far have not yet encountered or heard of any problems. I highly recommend it. It's a fun program, the recipients will love their customized cards, and it will save you money in the long run!

Very disappointed when I got this home and tried to use it. You are very limited in the personalization and you cannot resize the cards from half-fold to quarter fold.